Womens conference on slate at CEU

The Salt Lake Tribune's award-winning political cartoonist and author, Pat Bagley, will bring his humor specializing in all things Mormon and Utahn to Price as the keynote speaker of the 26th Women's Conference hosted by the College of Eastern Utah on April 1 from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

"No one wields a chainsaw with more compassion than I do," he admits.

His roots in the Beehive State run deep. He is a fifth generation Utahn, born in Salt Lake City but raised in southern California. His mother taught school, and his father was mayor of a booming seaside community.

He remembers well the annual pilgrimages to Utah to visit relatives: a station wagon crammed with four kids, two adults, and accompanying baggage (both physical and emotional). Bagley returned for good to Utah in 1977 following an LDS mission to Bolivia.

He graduated from BYU in 1979 with a degree in political science and a minor in history, which he put to good use by drawing caricatures in the Orem Mall for a summer.

Over the past two decades, he has published several books and produced 6,000 cartoons for the editorial pages of The Salt Lake Tribune, many of which have won awards or found their way into publications including Time, The Washington Post and The Guardian of London.

He achieved international renown by producing some of the most popular pins during the pin craze surrounding the 2002 Olympics. His "Seven Brides for One Brother" was a much sought-after classic, as was the "Crickets Make Me Barf" seagull pin.

Bagley's latest book is 101 Ways to Survive Four More Years of George W. Bush, a scathing collection of political cartoons.

His other recent work includes illustrations for The Fit Kids Cookbook, teaching kids that food should be fun, not fast. His Utah books are local favorites: Welcome To Utah, his collection of hilarious cartoons; This is the Place, an illustrated children's history of Utah, co-authored by his brother, historian Will Bagley; and Dinosaurs of Utah, co-authored with Gayen Wharton. Bagley has also illustrated several LDS bestsellers including the J. Golden Kimball Stories, vol. 1 and 2, I Spy a Nephite, The Book of Mormon Timeline, The Church History Timeline, and his popular series with humor columnist Robert Kirby, including Sunday of the Living Dead, Wake Me for the Resurrection, and Family Home Screaming. He still works at The Tribune, he continues to publish more and more books, and lives in Salt Lake City with his sons, Miles and Alec; their cat, Tiger; and their dog, Balto.

Besides Bagley, Sherleen Jaussi will speak to the conference participants in the opening session. The mother of six children, whose only solo flight left her crashed and lost in the mountains west of Grand Junction, Colo. on June 23, 1981. The first leg of her journey was completed without incident. She had flown from the Price Airport to the Grand Junction Airport as part of a three-legged flight that should have earned Jaussi her pilot's licence. Just 15 minutes outside of Grand Junction, her plane caught a sudden succession of down drafts and plummeted into the forest. For five days she fought heat, thirst, pain and loneliness while her family in Price struggled to maintain hope for her survival.

An extensive air search, involving hundreds of volunteers, failed to locate either Jaussi or her plane. Finally a ground search was instituted.

Making national headlines after she was miraculously found, a book and movie was subsequently released describing her five-day ordeal. The book and movie were titled Solo, the miraculous story of a woman who refused to give up. Over two decades later, Jaussi will return to Price to rekindle her thoughts about surviving and how it changed her life.

Twelve workshops will be offered at the conference including How to Cope with the Sandwich Generation, Time and How to Make it Work for You, Massage . . . Therapy for Those who Need it Most, How to Avoid the Parenting Trap, Genetics, the Political Voice in all of Us, Music: the Pathway to Wellness, Alternative Energy Healing, Osteoporosis, Smart Women - Smart Money, Creating Distinctive and Beautiful Water Gardens and Women in Human Evolution; Interesting Insights.